Best known to millions of CBS daytime fans as “Clarence,” a cool, well-dressed character with an extensive hat collection who provided a streetwise summary of soap opera highlights each week, actor Brad Senders is set to reprise the role on “The Young and the Restless” when he makes a special appearance on the Wednesday, December 27 episode of the daytime drama series.
A comedian, actor and writer, Sanders is best known for the radio soap opera “It’s Your World” and for portraying Clarence in the popular series “The Clarence Update,” for which he received two Daytime Emmy Award nominations as writer/performer in the New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment category. He shared the nominations with “The Bold and the Beautiful” head writer/executive producer Bradley Bell and supervising producer Casey Kasprzyk.
A Chicago native, Sanders attended Columbia College where he majored in television and radio production. After college, he moved to Los Angeles to further his career. Sanders is the owner and president of Babysitters Productions, the company he founded in 1989, which produced “The Clarence Update” and another online feature, “An Inside Look at the News Inside the News,” a news/comedy segment.
As for “It’s Your World,” the show was a fully produced short-form radio soap opera that aired daily on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” for over 16 years. Co-created with comedian Myra Jay, “It’s Your World” showcased Sanders’ writing and production talents and was a national hit.
Outside of the entertainment industry, Sanders co-founded “Be Good to Women Day” in 2003 alongside Deya Smith in response to the thousands of letters, phone calls and emails he’d received from abused and discouraged women. The annual prayer vigil and community forum is designed to honor women while addressing their safety and health issues. “Our mission: To eliminate negative words, images, and behaviors toward women and girls while promoting equality, respect and love through education and advocacy,” Sanders said of the purpose of “Be Good to Women Day.” He added, “Women are essential to the wellbeing of humanity. Women provide love. Nobody loves like a woman.”
In addition to “The Young and the Restless,” look for Sanders to appear in the upcoming movie musical, “The Color Purple,” which is set for release in theaters on Monday, December 25.
Sanders has appeared in numerous movies and television shows since his soap days, including appearing in episodes of “The Vampire Diaries,” “Scream: The TV Series,” “Black Lightning” and more recently, “The Wonder Years,” and in the movies “Drumline: A New Beat,” “Barbershop: The Next Cut,” “Just Mercy,” “Bad Boys for Life,” among others.
Check out some of Sanders’ work on “The Clarence Update” below.
Check out a clip of Sanders discussing “It’s Your World” below.